Walking Dead Shakeup: Sons of Anarchy Boss Kurt Sutter Slams "Small-Minded" AMC

Sutter rips network a new one after it's announced that Walking Dead showrunner Glen Mazzara is leaving

By Natalie Finn Dec 22, 2012 3:58 AMTags
E! Placeholder Image

Hey, didn't this happen the last time The Walking Dead changed showrunners, too?!

Sons of Anarchy creator Kurt Sutter, who's made it no secret that he has issues with the way AMC does business, raked the network over the coals again today in response to the news that its smash-hit horror drama will be moving on without showrunner Glenn Mazzara, who took over when Frank Darabont left.

"AMC is run by small-minded, bottom-line thinkers who have no appreciation or gratitude for the effort of it's [sic]creative personnel," Sutter, who worked with Mazzara on The Shield and counts him a good friend, wrote in a not-safe-for-basic-cable post on WhoSay.

"Time and time again we see events like what happened today with Glen Mazzara. They continue to disrespect writers, s--t on their audience and bury their network. Mazzara took the work-in-progress that was Walking Dead and turned it into a viable TV show with a future. Without him, that future is dim.

"Showrunners are not development executives," Sutter continued, "we're not cookiecutter douchebags that you plug into a preexisting model. TWD will suffer. Even Zombies need consistency. Mad Men and Breaking Bad will be gone soon. So will AMC. I hope their f--king stock takes a dive and the shareholders line up Sapan, Dolan and Collier and s--t in their open hands. C--ts."

In case you were wondering where the Sons of Anarchy characters got their potty mouths...

Shawn Ryan, the creator of The Shield, echoed Sutter in bashing AMC. "Breaking my Twitter silence to comment: AMC, WTF?" he tweeted. "Common knowledge that AMC cut Breaking Badshorter than it should have been. Now you have creative differences w/ biggest hit's savior? With FX, Showtime, HBO, Starz, Cinemax, A&E, TNT and others to sell to, it's a real question now why good show runners should sell to AMC?"

AMC, meanwhile, called Mazzara's exit "amicable," saying in a statement: "Both parties acknowledge that there is a difference of opinion about where the show should go moving forward, and conclude that it is best to part ways."

Sutter first took AMC and Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner to task in August 2011, seemingly blaming Weiner for tying up AMC's purse strings and leading both to Darabont's exit from The Walking Dead after its promising first season and to the precarious-at-the-time position Breaking Bad found itself in after four seasons.

"We respect Kurt as a writer, but not as our [chief financial officer]," AMC told E! News then.

Sutter praised Mad Men back in May, telling the Huffington Post that his beef was with AMC and not Weiner.

As for what happened with Darabont, Sutter said that he received "a very nice email from Frank...And the irony is that one of my best friends took over to run that show...but Frank getting extracted was very odd and painful and, quite honestly, very sad for me. I knew how hard he worked to get that show up and to be as groundbreaking as it was, and that just did not seem like the best way to play that, no matter how difficult or demanding Frank may have been. There was a better way to handle it, in my opinion."

Sutter even stoked the flame earlier this year when he inked his own deal with FX to stick around for seasons five, six and seven of Sons of Anarchy.

"closed my deal for 3 more years on SOA. no headlines, no pushed schedule, no stealing from paul. thank you FX and 20th for your generosity," he tweeted.